Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner

The creativity of film combined with a revolution in design!

No other company in the world has more experience at scanning film than Cintel, and now that knowledge has been combined with cutting edge technology to produce the new Blackmagic Cintel film scanner! The new Cintel scanner has been designed with an architectural aesthetic and it’s so thin it can even be wall mounted! It features totally redesigned digital servos, high intensity diffuse light source and imaging systems, so you get a real time scanner that scans 35mm and 16mm film up to 30fps in Ultra HD resolution! Now you can use film for post production or unlock millions of hours of film based content for scanning to Ultra HD masters for a new future world of exciting Ultra HD distribution!

Convert Existing Film to Ultra HD

With consumers purchasing large Ultra HD televisions in massive quantities right now, the demand for great Ultra HD content has never been greater and will become a boom market in the next few years. Ultra HD is incredible quality and there are millions of hours of Ultra HD content that’s been generated over the last 100 years locked up in 35mm film that is stored in vaults worldwide! The new Cintel scanner will scan negative and positive 35mm film into amazing quality Ultra HD and you can unlock the extra resolution from 35mm film that no one has been able to see until now! 35mm film is natively 4K so the extra quality is already in the film. There is no easier way to generate Ultra HD feature films and television programming for customers to view on their new large screen televisions!

The Creative Advantage of Film

Nothing looks more like film than film does! The look of well shot 35mm film is unmistakable and it’s what all digital cinema cameras strive to emulate. When you shoot on film, you are not locked into a single look because you can pick a range of film stocks that totally alter how your images will look. Even today, with the most amazing digital cinema cameras available, some of Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers still prefer to shoot on 35mm film, not only because of it’s sharpness, dynamic range, and colorimetry, but mostly for that classic film creative style. Unfortunately in the past the cost of post production involving film was high. Now the new Cintel film scanner eliminates this high cost because it’s a complete low maintenance design you can install and operate yourself!

Preserve Historical Footage

The new Blackmagic Cintel film scanner includes the most advanced Image Mill image processing Cintel has to offer, built right into the machine itself! This means you always have powerful grain reduction and optical stabilization technology available, making the Cintel scanner a perfect choice for historical archive conversions and restoration projects. Cintel’s ultra thin size means you can install it desk mounted or even wall mounted. There are even multiple accessory mount points for adding audio pickups or key-code readers. Now you can purchase your own scanner so you don’t have to transport precious film out of house to be transferred. The Cintel film scanner lets you produce stabilized, grain reduced files that are ready for digital restoration and mastering.

Innovative Design

Automatic Tension

2000ft Capacity

Angled Transport Deck

Designed to hang beautifully on your wall, the Cintel film scanner is constructed using aircraft design techniques for a stiff and vibration free main deck so you get smooth film handling. The core chassis has been designed as a super rigid structural space frame, which results in a design that’s dramatically lighter than an older simplistic heavy plate design. This means the Cintel scanner is light enough to be wall mounted in your facility, making it part of the environment of your color correction suite. Being super thin and wall mounted, it’s out of the way until you need to use it, and then it springs to life and performs! Whether wall or desk mounted the innovative design includes sliding doors, built in cleaning rollers and new digital servos to keep your film clean and ensures handling of valuable negative remains gentle.

Latest Technology

The new Cintel film scanner is an innovation in technology. Film traditionally has been a mechanical technology and film products have suffered from poor quality electronics that required experienced engineers to keep them working. The Cintel scanner has been designed with the latest Blackmagic Design image processing technology and features a Thunderbolt 2 connection so you can connect it to your Mac and scan the film directly into your color correction system. That makes setup and use extremely fast plus eliminates slow file copying after scanning. Because Cintel is a Mac OS X Thunderbolt 2 peripheral, you get easy to install software updates that add new features and it also means you can even upgrade your computer whenever you need!

MINUTESOF FILM

MINUTESTO SCAN

Realtime Scanning

The Cintel Film Scanner is the world’s first real time 4K film scanner to use Thunderbolt 2, making it super easy to set up and install. The new diffuse high intensity light source means the Cintel scanner runs at a smooth real time speed keeping film handling gentle and transfers super fast. The Thunderbolt 2 connection features a massive 20 Gb/s speed so you can transfer all this data direct into your computer without quality limitations. You can even change computers simply by unplugging the single Thunderbolt cable. If you’re wall mounting then you can use the longer 30 meter Thunderbolt cables to connect to your grading computer even when hiding the cabling in the wall. With the Cintel scanner, you get the high resolution of a film scanner with the real time use of a traditional telecine!

Renowned Cintel Quality

The Cintel Film Scanner features a super bright spherical RGB LED illumination and an extremely sensitive imaging sensor. That means you get high quality scans that are super sharp even when running at full real time speed. The spherical RGB LED illumination ensures your priceless film is never exposed to unnecessary thermal stress and color fading effects of traditional scanner lamps. In addition, Cintel’s patented diffusing sphere technology reduces the visibility of dust and scratches, giving you stunningly beautiful film scans every time.

Maintenance Free Connections

The Cintel film scanner is easy to set up and configure thanks to it’s Thunderbolt 2 interface. Simply connect the scanner to your Mac OS X workstation, install the software, and start scanning! That means you don’t need a dedicated engineer to operate and support the scanner. The Cintel scanner has been designed to give you the freedom to move it between machines or even plug into laptop computers so you can scan your film directly into the computer you’re going to use the content on. The HDMI output supports Ultra HD televisions for perfectly accurate focusing and film alignment using a local monitor. The HDMI output can even be converted into SDI video using Blackmagic Mini Converter HDMI to SDI 4K, perfect for connecting into your system for client monitoring!

HDMI

Thunderbolt 2

Power

Fast Easy Control

Using the Cintel film scanner is easy and intuitive. You get scanner control software that includes everything you need to transfer and capture films to Ultra HD or HD files. Scanned files can also be opened with DaVinci Resolve for further color, restoration and mastering work.

Includes DaVinci Resolve

In the past when film was the main way to get high quality images for post production, Cintel telecine’s and DaVinci color correction was the standard combination used worldwide! Now these two wonderful brands are back together again because the Cintel film scanner includes a full copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio software! Now you get full color correction features included so you can take advantage of the Cintel scanner’s amazing image quality. You will never be limited creatively by your equipment because you’ll have incredible film looks combined with the same powerful color correction toolset used by the world’s leading cinematographers!

Cintel Pedigree

Founded by John Logie Baird in 1927

Cintel has been providing high resolution film scanning tools to the film and television industries longer than any other company. Cintel is recognized as one of the world’s most trusted researchers, designers and manufacturers of motion picture film scanners. With over 85 years of experience, Cintel has developed and patented key technologies for the highest quality digital imaging of film for broadcast, post production, and digital intermediate workflows. Now combined with Blackmagic Design’s experience in cameras, image processing and DaVinci color correction, the new Cintel scanner is a perfect blend of film tradition, advanced reliable technology combined with elegant industrial design.

1927

John Logie Baird founds the Baird Television Company, later renamed to Cintel.

1950

The first flying spot telecine was installed at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios.

1993

The Cintel Mk III high definition telecine was shown.

2014

Blackmagic Design buys Cintel and redesigns scanner.

Complete Solution

The Cintel film scanner includes everything you need to scan and grade film with your computer. You get the Cintel scanner with powerful built in Image Mill stabilization, a single 35mm film gate (16mm purchased separately), two film spools, a set of four cleaning rollers, desk mount feet and DaVinci Resolve Studio software, which is used to operate the scanner. The Blackmagic Design Cintel Film Scanner is a complete solution. There are no hidden installation fees, no software update fees, and no ongoing license fees. You may also transfer your scanner to another user absolutely free.

Example Scans

Download these ungraded RAW sample clips to see the incredible quality of the Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner first hand!